


Take Me To Church

by Vertiga



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Fake AH Crew, Gen, Guns, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Self-Destruction, Self-Doubt, Self-Sacrifice, Subspace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 14:36:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3385349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vertiga/pseuds/Vertiga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife<br/>Offer me that deathless death<br/>Good God, let me give you my life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me To Church

There's something wrong with Ryan. Not the usual - laughing as fire blooms at his hands, as they drive too fast and too reckless away from the scene of their latest outrage. No, Geoff is used to those things, knows that what would be insane by anyone else's standards is situation normal for the Fake AH. It's the quiet that worries him. 

There have been times, lately, when Ryan is too still, when his hands shake, just for a moment, before he's up and moving again, challenging Ray to a round of Halo, arguing probability with an indignant Gavin. Sometimes, when he's safe in the penthouse and his mask and make-up are gone, Geoff catches him staring at nothing, looking lost and sad in a way that makes Geoff's heart weigh heavy in his chest.

There's no trace of hesitation when they're in the field. If anything it's the opposite - Ryan is throwing himself into a life of crime with an intensity that would be terrifying if he wasn't on their side. He's throwing grenades into traffic, shooting up the pier, hijacking buses just to joyride with a dozen passengers screaming and sobbing behind him until the sirens catch up and he abandons the bus in favour of duking it out with the police. SWAT can't touch him. Helicopters are just an excuse for an even bigger explosion. It isn't as though they haven't all gone out in search of mayhem before, but there's a desperate edge to Ryan's one-man crimewave lately. He isn't laughing any more.

He killed so many cops in the week before their last score that they fled the scene almost unopposed, laden with dufflebags full of cash as the bank's alarms howled. The LSPD just didn't have the manpower to mount a proper response. It was the easiest getaway Geoff's ever known, and he's grateful for that, but he's not stupid. There's something wrong with Ryan.

The penthouse is quiet, that night, once the rush of a good heist has worn off and the others have drifted away to their own rooms. Geoff is sitting on the couch, bowtie loose around his neck, the eternal lights of Los Santos the only illumination in the sitting room, tilting a finger of whiskey back and forth to watch the lights play through it. The gentle clink of ice on the glass is soothing, familiar, as he looks out over his city and tries to think of nothing. 

He doesn't hear Ryan come in, but then he rarely does. For a big man, Ryan can be utterly silent when he wants. Geoff doesn't move, just watches curiously as Ryan folds down on the floor beside his knee, leaning his head back against the cushioned seat. His face is clean, the black paint washed away in the hours since their return. He looks pale in the reflected neon, ghostly blue, and his eyes are wide as he looks up at Geoff. Ryan isn't stupid either. Of course he's seen Geoff watching him.

Geoff doesn't bother offering him a drink. If he wanted one, there'd already be a glass in his hand. Instead he waits to see what Ryan has to say. The fact that he's put himself on the floor is interesting - Geoff is rarely taller than anyone, is used to intimidating their rivals despite being smaller, but apparently Ryan wants Geoff to have the upper hand.

For a long, long time, neither of them says anything. Geoff lets the ice melt into his whiskey, less interested in drinking it than waiting, watching the tiny changes in Ryan's tired expression.

Ryan starts with a sigh that sounds like it holds a lifetime of regret.

'Yes, I've been acting differently lately,' he admits, as though Geoff needed the confirmation. 'If I've gone too far, you need to tell me - God knows I can't tell.'

Geoff considers that. It isn't the violence that bothers him, he realises. It's Ryan's grim attitude, the desperation with which he throws himself against wave after wave of police. It's a miracle that he hasn't suffered so much as a scratch, and it bothers Geoff that Ryan doesn't seem to care if he walks away from each shoot-out or not. It's supposed to be fun, supposed to be a heart-pounding thrill that reminds you you're alive, or else what's the point?

'You haven't gone too far,' he assures the man. 'But it doesn't seem like you're enjoying yourself.'

Ryan snorts a laugh at that, low and raw. 'I've killed at least fifty people in the last seven days. Most people would be more worried if I _was_ having fun.'

'Most people,' Geoff repeats, not needing to say anything else. When have they ever agreed with "most people"?

Ryan nods jerkily, and takes a moment to gather his thoughts again.

'I'm not a good man,' he says at last.

'None of us are good men,' Geoff says evenly. He's not sure what Ryan's trying to say, not sure Ryan really knows either. Good men don't hold a city like Los Santos under their heel, don't keep killing and stealing even when they have more money than they can possibly spend.

'There are levels of not good,' Ryan protests, looking wide-eyed up at Geoff as though it's pivotal that he grasps the point. 'I'm worse than the rest of you. Lately I've been struggling not to be.'

'What could be worse?' Geoff asks, his voice quiet, gentle. Ryan looks like he could spook, could give up on what he's trying to make Geoff understand, and Geoff _needs_ to understand.

'Hurting people who trust you. Failing to keep them safe. Killing because you _have_ to, because it's too loud and just for a minute, after the bomb goes off, you can make the world go quiet.'

There are fine tremors in Ryan's hands where they rest open on his thighs, and he looks wrecked, his face twisted as though the thoughts are hurting him as he lets them out.

'You should be afraid of me,' he says.

Geoff's first thought is to deny it. Once, he feared the Vagabond; faceless, nameless, merciless, the greatest mercenary in the history of Los Santos. But Ryan has been just Ryan for too long for that old fear to hold any weight. The Vagabond doesn't make pancakes, or fix headphones, or laugh at videos of puppies falling over. They're all dangerous men, but not to each other.

Ryan must see the denial on his face. He rises up a little, gripping Geoff's knee with a white-knuckled hand.

'I'm afraid of me.'

It's said low and fast, as if he has to get the words out before they vanish, and Geoff is shaken by the wildness in the confession.

'Are you planning on attacking us?' he asks carefully, ignoring the pain of Ryan's grip in favour of worrying about what he means.

'No. I don't know,' Ryan says at once. He screws up his face for a minute, struggling to find the words. 'I'm not in control, sometimes. I do things, and don't think about them until later. I don't want to hurt any of you.'

'You never have,' Geoff reminds him. They've trusted each other with their lives more times than he can count. And yes, there have been accidents, car crashes, bullet wounds, but the Fake AH is still standing. They've never lost a man, and that's unheard of in their line of work. Absolute trust, just between them, is at the heart of their success.

'I haven't,' Ryan agrees, and that at least sounds as though it gives him some relief. It doesn't last, though. 'I don't want to either, but I feel like I'm getting worse. Nothing's enough any more. I want to set the whole city on fire, but I don't think it would help, and most of all I don't want any of you to be in the way when I do. I have to keep you safe.'

'You do keep us safe. You saved Jack's life today,' Geoff says. None of them except Ryan had seen the bank teller going for a shotgun, swinging it up to blast away the back of Jack's head. The man had been dead before he had finished moving, a pistol bullet passing so close to Jack's neck that it cut a strand of her hair. Ryan's hands were dead steady when it counted.

'It's harder when _I'm_ the one you need to be kept safe from.'

Geoff watches Ryan for a moment, seeing nothing but honest fear in his blue eyes. No matter how deeply Geoff disagrees, Ryan honestly believes that he's a threat.

'I don't know what to do,' he admits, when he can't take the pressure of Ryan's gaze any longer.

Ryan sags a little, his grip loosening, relieved that Geoff is listening. He sinks back down against the couch again, looking up at Geoff with his head tipped back on the cushion as though it's too heavy to hold up by himself.

'I want you to kill me.'

Geoff's blood freezes.

'What the fuck did you just say?' he bursts out, instinctive and immediate, letting himself sound angry because it's better than sounding scared out of his mind.

Ryan laughs softly. He's smiling for the first time that night, small and sad. 'Not right now. Well, that's up to you, really. That's the point - you need to know that I want you to do it. If I'm going too far. If I'm a threat to any of you, I want you to put me down first.

'That's insane.'

'Yes,' Ryan agrees. 'I think I am, and that's why I need an insurance policy. The others don't need to know, but you're in charge, so I'm warning you, and I'm putting the burden of choice on you. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, Geoff. You know that.'

Geoff thinks, briefly, that it's so typical of Ryan to quote Shakespeare in the midst of some kind of mental break, but he can't focus on that thought for long. He's too busy reeling.

'You're telling me that if I put a bullet in you right now, you'd be ok with that?' he says, voice cracking in disbelief.

'Well, it might be a little premature,' Ryan says, obscenely amused. 'I think I can hold it together for a while longer, but it's your call. I'm going to throw everything I have at this city, and if I don't die in the process, there's going to come a time when I'm going to hurt one of you. You mustn't let me.'

He's looking Geoff right in the eye, and his face is so agonised at the thought that Geoff feels a chill go through him in sympathy. The idea of hurting one of their own is appalling, and that's exactly what Ryan is asking him to do. Putting Ryan down, even to save the rest, is a horrifying thought.

Geoff reaches into his jacket, thumb flicking the catch to drop the magazine before he pulls the pistol out of his shoulder holster.

Ryan's eyes track the gun as he pulls it from under his jacket, but he doesn't move. He lets his head loll against the cushion, watching Geoff as he cradles the gun in his tattooed hands, lost in the enormity of what the weapon represents. They've all got so comfortable with guns that it's jarring to really _think_ about what that moulded plastic and metal could mean.

'You really want me to shoot you.'

It's not a question so much as Geoff trying to make sense of things to himself, but Ryan hums anyway.

'When you feel I need it,' he agrees, calm and still.

Geoff leans down and presses the muzzle of the gun against Ryan's temple. He's not sure why - perhaps to steel himself against the sight of a gun to Ryan's head, or the way it feels in his own hand. Perhaps because Ryan said "when I _need_ it", and Geoff almost thinks he needs it tonight, after the strain of telling Geoff what's been on his mind.

He flicks off the safety with his thumb, the pad calloused from performing the same action again and again over many years.

Ryan still doesn't move, doesn't even twitch at the click, though he knows exactly what it means. He's not shaking any more. His hands are loose on his thighs, his head turned bonelessly to look up at Geoff.

'You're ready to die, aren't you?' Geoff says, wondering at Ryan's utter acceptance. His recent recklessness makes so much sense, now that Geoff knows what he's been thinking. Ryan's already decided that he doesn't have long. Either he goes down fighting for his crew, or Geoff puts him down. There is no other future.

'Yes,' Ryan says, barely more than a whisper.

Geoff nods. He pulls the trigger.

The chamber clicks empty, but Ryan jerks as though he really has been shot. His eyes slide closed, and for a long moment he stops breathing, hanging suspended as his body resets, reacts to not being dead when all expectations had said otherwise.

When he opens his eyes again, Geoff's stomach flips. He's seen subspace before, knows how it looks, and Ryan seems very close to it. His lips are slightly parted, his face slack. His gaze is distant and shiny, pupils blown huge with adrenaline and the sweet relief of having given Geoff control.

Geoff tosses the empty gun aside and rests his hand on Ryan's hair instead, feeling the soft waves sink under his fingers.

Ryan looks up at him, and it might be an eternity before he takes a breath and blinks again.

He comes back to himself a little, looking exhausted, but somehow still more peaceful than he has for weeks, and Geoff realises how much strain he has been bearing, unable to trust himself. It's that, more than any fear of what Ryan might do to them, that makes up his mind.

'When it comes to it, you have my word,' he promises, his hand firm and grounding on Ryan's head.

Ryan turns his face aside, curling up with his forehead pressed against Geoff's thigh.

'Thank you,' he says on a sigh.

Geoff just holds him there, silently stroking his hair until the sun begins to rise over their city.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I caved and wrote Fake AH fic. I just adore the idea of this crew so much. And I'm a sucker for self-sacrifice and angst, in case you couldn't tell.  
> I've been listening to Hozier's Take Me To Church, and this is what I think of when I hear the chorus.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYSVMgRr6pw


End file.
